doctors

Tamika Cross alleges 'blatant discrimination'

(Newser) -
When Tamika Cross heard a mid-flight call for a doctor to help an unresponsive passenger aboard a Delta flight from Detroit to Minneapolis, she immediately threw her hand in the air. "Oh no, sweetie, put [your] hand down, we are looking for actual physicians or nurses," the OB/GYN,...
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'I have no words to describe the fear and horror': Dr. Samer Attar

(Newser) -
Dr. Samer Attar, an orthopedic surgeon from Chicago who recently volunteered his time and skills in Aleppo, Syria, paints a dismal picture of what he encountered there. "I have no words to describe the fear and horror," the Syrian-American doctor tells the Los Angeles Times in an email....
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Investigation turns up horrifying trend in the medical profession

(Newser) -
More than half of the 2,400 US doctors disciplined for sexually abusing patients since 1999 were allowed to continue seeing—and abusing—patients, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports following a yearlong investigation. That includes a Missouri doctor who got aroused while asking a patient if she liked being tied up...
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New analysis finally proves the 'prevailing wisdom'

(Newser) -
It certainly seems like doctors who take money from pharmaceutical companies would prescribe more brand-name drugs, but there's never been proof of that. That is until an extensive analysis by ProPublica , which found that the more pharmaceutical money a doctor accepts, the more brand-name medicines they prescribe to patients....
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Maybe because it's a grueling gig in the middle of rural New Zealand

(Newser) -
Dr. Alan Kenny is offering a fellow doctor a $267,000 annual salary, three months of vacation, and a half-share of his New Zealand practice, the Guardian reports. And with 6,000 patients, his business in rural Tokoroa is booming, to the point where Kenny can't take time off....
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NZ doctor has few real candidates, is getting bashed by residents

(Newser) -
Dr. Alan Kenny hoped getting the word out about a half-share in his medical practice in rural New Zealand—which comes with a $267,000 annual salary and three months of vacation—would result in a candidate that could help ease his stress. Instead, it's left him in "...
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New study shows nearly 1 in 3 residents are depressed

(Newser) -
Almost one in three resident doctors may suffer from depression and their patients may suffer as a result, according to a new study led by a Harvard resident. Douglas Mata and his team, which included an expert on physician mental health, examined 17,560 doctors in the early stages of...
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IT and marketing managers make the list

(Newser) -
Want to pull in $100,000 a year? According to Bureau of Labor Statistics data, just 38 US occupations offer that much, and only 11 of them are common enough to employ over 100,000 people, 24/7 Wall St reports. Among those, here are the top five:

Vinnie Vavatsikos went in with a cat-scratch on his eyelid

(Newser) -
A Canadian boy who went to the doctor this summer ended up screaming in terror when a receptionist accidentally glued one of his eyes shut, his mother tells the CBC . "I thought I was going to faint," says Julia Vavatsikos of what befell her three-year-old boy Vincenzo, who...
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Deadly but treatable, Sepsis is a complication of infections

(Newser) -
Most Americans have never heard of sepsis, but the condition hospitalizes a million patients every year—more than heart attack and stroke hospitalizations combined—and is the nation's costliest reason for hospitalization, the Conversation reports. Yet it's hard to diagnose and many doctors don't look for, let...
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Gov. Doug Ducey signs law critics say is based on quackery

(Newser) -
Women seeking abortions in Arizona will be hearing new advice from their physicians. Gov. Doug Ducey signed into law this week a mandate that doctors must tell patients that abortions performed using drugs may be reversible, the New York Times reports. The news has met with outcry from medical community...
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Only 45% of Medicare patients with disease were informed of diagnosis

(Newser) -
An estimated 700,000 people 65 and older in the US will die with Alzheimer's disease this year, the Alzheimer's Association notes. The sobering statistic and emotionally devastating nature of the disease make it understandable why no doctor relishes having to tell his patients that they've been...
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Family physicians know the risks, but they don't want to lose patients

(Newser) -
Doctors are reluctantly delaying vaccine schedules for kids, despite knowing the risks of doing so, because they don't want to alienate parents altogether, reports the New York Times . A study published in Pediatrics that surveyed 534 primary care physicians found that 93% of them were asked to delay a...
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Annual physicals are 'worthless,' writes Ezekiel J. Emanuel

(Newser) -
It's a new year, and perhaps you're thinking about calling your doctor to make an appointment for your annual physical. Don't, writes oncologist Ezekiel J. Emanuel in the New York Times . "From a health perspective, the annual physical exam is basically worthless," he says. Studies...
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Out-of-network providers work on patients without their knowing it

(Newser) -
Peter Drier's neck surgery bills didn't surprise him, even $133,000 from the anesthesiologist and $56,000 from his Manhattan hospital. But what was $117,000 from an "assistant surgeon"? Drier, a bank technology manager, had run into a growing US phenomenon known as "drive-by...
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UK researchers ID 10 proteins that can predict disease onset

(Newser) -
Alzheimer's may be well on its way to being a detectable disease by way of a blood test. The BBC reports on the "major step forward": Researchers at King's College London studied differences in the blood of 1,148 people—476 with Alzheimer's, 220 with mild...
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NIH will pour millions into 6 research centers over 4 years

(Newser) -
They're baffling, mysterious, confounding: the rarest of rare diseases, ones that often plague no more than 50 people on the globe. The quest to diagnose them is getting a big boost from the National Institutes of Health, which yesterday announced the creation of a an "Undiagnosed Diseases Network....
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Surgeon billed for $3.7M—without doing surgery, WSJ finds

(Newser) -
A rare heart treatment involving strapping patients to a bed using large cuffs that promote blood flow is rarely used by America's cardiologists; the Cleveland Clinic's 141 cardiologists used it on just six patients last year. But one LA internist used it on nearly all his 615 Medicare...
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Daily Beast writer says it's becoming a public-health concern

(Newser) -
Cases like that of David Kwiatkowski, a lab technician who infected dozens of patients with hepatitis C because he first injected himself with their drugs, are a sign of a big problem in the world of health care, writes Kent Sepkowitz in the Daily Beast . That would be drug-addicted doctors,...
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We're seeing a 'war on physicians': Daniela Drake

(Newser) -
According to a survey last year , nine of 10 doctors wouldn't recommend their career to others; some 300 doctors commit suicide yearly. All that's not surprising, writes Daniela Drake at the Daily Beast : "Simply put, being a doctor has become a miserable and humiliating undertaking," she...
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